…join five clubs and attend none of the meetings.
…JOIN FIVE CLUBS AND ATTEND NONE OF THE MEETINGS.
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Remember the club fair? A whirlwind of free pens and lofty promises. We signed up for everything – debate, investment, a club dedicated to obscure medieval poetry – not because we had boundless free time, but because it felt like a prerequisite. A silent checkbox on the invisible prestige scorecard. Each email invitation to a meeting became a tiny guilt pang, quickly dismissed by a packed schedule of lectures, internships, and networking events. We were building a resume, not necessarily a community.
That long list of affiliations looked fantastic on paper, a testament to our 'well-roundedness,' our ambition. But how many of us genuinely engaged with all those commitments? It was a collective act, a silent understanding that the appearance of engagement sometimes mattered more than the actual attendance. We were all striving, performing, driven by a desire to stand out in a sea of exceptional peers. The pressure to optimize every moment, to leverage every opportunity, was palpable.
Now, looking back, did those phantom memberships truly define our journey? Or were they just another symptom of the unique pressure cooker we navigated, chasing an ideal of perfection that often left us stretched thin and perpetually busy? It’s a habit that perhaps carried over into our professional lives, this constant striving to fill every moment, to tick every box, long after graduation. A funny, poignant echo of our formative years, a shared experience that speaks volumes about the drive – and sometimes the performative nature – of our path.
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